Hollywood Enemy: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Page 19

  Cooper leaned in closer, holding the syringe a few inches from my face. I pushed back against the bed, my thoughts drifting to Bernie. “My dog…is he…”

  He shook his head. “Enough talk.”

  His hand inched forward at the same time I heard a knock on the door, a woman’s voice calling out. He turned, maybe recognizing whoever it was.

  After a moment Cooper turned back to me and his hand came down again. This time it had a rag that he stuffed into my mouth. “I’ll be right back.”

  While he walked to the door I moved quickly, hoisting my legs up to where my hands were tied in front of me. Seconds later, my fingers found the holster that I carried against the inside of my left thigh, both hands gripping the small .38 caliber revolver. I heard arguing from across the room, the door slamming shut, a sudden movement back in my direction. I glanced over to where I’d heard the woman’s voice but no one was there. Cooper was less than six feet away, coming at me with the syringe again.

  I raised my trembling hands, thinking about my police training, and the long ago words of an academy shooting instructor.

  Aim for central body mass.

  I then did something that went against all my training. I held my breath, raised my gun higher, and aimed at Ryan Cooper’s head.

  Then I fired.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “Lacy didn’t make it,” Jack said.

  I fell into his arms and cried until there were no tears left. Bernie came over and nuzzled me, whining. We were in the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center where the doctors had treated me. Whatever poison Ryan Cooper had used on me had finally been purged from my system, leaving behind a massive headache and grief beyond my comprehension.

  Lacy.

  I’d only known her for a day but I’d instantly known we would have become good friends. Now she was gone because of Ryan Cooper. The tears came again. This time I sobbed like a child as Jack held onto me.

  A long time later my watery eyes came up to him. I managed to say, “How…”

  “As you were going down in the parking lot, Lacy left the car, but she…she closed the door on Bernie. Cooper shot her at close range. She never had a chance.”

  “And he’s still out there.” I looked into his caramel eyes, praying that I’d been hallucinating and was somehow wrong about what I thought had happened.

  He breathed, gave a slight nod. “There was blood on the carpet in the motel room. The bullet probably grazed him and he took off. We’ve got the area sealed off. We’re going door to door.”

  After that there were more tears, visits by a couple of doctors who prescribed a sleeping medication, and then Chief East came by. I composed myself during the visit, determined that I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. The meeting was brief. He expressed his condolences over the loss of Lacy and asked me about my physical condition.

  “I’m fine,” I said, meeting his dark eyes. “I want to return to duty as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll see,” he said before turning away, leaving me.

  ***

  I spent the rest of the day and night at Jack’s apartment with Bernie after checking in with Natalie. I briefly explained to her what happened. She expressed her sorrow and said that she’d be in touch with me later. As the day wore on Jack checked in with Charlie and John Duncan. There was no sign of Ryan Cooper. He had slipped away again, disappearing into the night like the ghost that he was.

  As the day mercifully slipped into night, Jack held me in his arms and said that he wanted me to stay with him until Cooper was found. I didn’t answer, just nodded. Later, much later, as the night deepened, I held onto Jack, sobbing again. I cried for the father and mother I never knew, for a good cop named Lacy Grover, and wondered if the nightmare that was my life would always be like this.

  Somewhere in the darkness of that night, Jack brushed his lips against my neck. He then found my eyes. His words were soft and tender, just above a whisper. “I love you, Kate. I’ll always love you.”

  My eyes filled and in that moment every doubt that I’d had about finding love again and being able to return that love went away. My words came in spasms of emotion and tears. “I…I love you…too, Jack. In some ways I…I think I always have. I was just afraid…to tell you.”

  And then our lips and hands and hearts found one another as the night become a languid expression of love and passion. Jack touched me in all the right places, soothing every part of me that had been broken. When we finally came together, the darkness that had consumed my life completely went away. I knew what it was like to give my heart and soul to someone again.

  I was in love.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The days after my abduction and the murder of Lacy Grover seemed to last forever. Lacy’s memorial service was one of those all day funerals, attended by cops from across the state and covered by all the local media outlets. Chief East spoke at her services, as did a couple of her friends, and then her father. His remembrance of Lacy, whom he said would always be his little girl, was heartbreaking and left me even more emotionally drained than before.

  I spent the days after the funeral doing nothing. On one hand, the love I felt for Jack had made my heart soar with happiness, but on the other it felt like my life had been trapped in quicksand. No matter how hard I tried to pull myself back out of the emotional quagmire, it was impossible. Lacy’s murder had been sensationalized by the media, with constant headlines and stories about Ryan Cooper and his attempt to kill me. I’d purposely stopped reading the papers and watching television so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  At my insistence, Jack eventually went back to work because I continued to have twenty-four hour protection. I’d also checked in with Natalie and my other roommates. The wedding plans were still in the works but I told her that I couldn’t be involved for now. She said she understood.

  A few days after Lacy’s funeral, I forced myself to rejoin the world of the living. I made a decision to honor what Lacy had said to me about finding out where all the bodies were buried. After being cleared for duty by the department’s shrink, with Lieutenant Edna’s permission Bernie and I drove with Pearl Kramer to Bratton State Hospital, about an hour north of Hollywood. Pearl had been assigned as my daytime protection, probably because the search for Ryan Cooper was going nowhere.

  As we drove I filled Pearl in on my case with the FBI, telling him about Joanne Vreeland, Jason McCray, and the trip they’d taken to Europe with their classmates, including Albert Martin, ten year earlier. I then told him about Ellian Lofton being their music teacher, and how we’d learned from his brother that their father, Robert Lofton, had been a sexual predator committed to the hospital in the 1980’s. I also explained about James Martin, aka Loretta, and how we believed he was The Artist.

  “I checked with R&I,” I told Pearl. “There’s not much in the way of records, other than an old mug shot of Lofton, the complaint filed by the DA’s office, and a copy of the court docket showing his 288 conviction.” Section 288 was the California penal code statute that made it a felony to engage in sexual conduct with a minor under the age of fourteen.

  Pearl told me that he was familiar with the term MDSO and recalled the long ago sex offender proceedings. “Lots of so called experts got it all wrong, did a lot of damage. The program was a revolving door. Offenders participated in the program, said all the right things, and gave the appearance of being cured. They were then released back on the streets to continue their crimes. I remember one case, in particular, where the offenders were released from the hospital to live in a group home and continue therapy. It was the perfect setup for them to go out and commit new crimes when they weren’t in group counseling, telling everyone how sorry they were for ruining their victims’ lives.”

  “Cured,” I said, glancing over at him as Bernie panted in the backseat. “You ever seen a violent, sexual predator cured?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless he was in a box with about six feet of earth
above him.” Pearl rubbed his jaw, set his leathery eyes on me for a moment. “How are you doing with everything, Kate?”

  I breathed and considered his question. “I really don’t know. I feel like I’m just going through the motions of living right now. I feel stuck if that makes any sense.”

  His lips parted, exposing a gap in his front teeth. “I was involved in a shootout in the nineties, suicide by cop, really. Know the feeling.”

  “How long did it take…to feel…normal again?”

  “Hard to say.” He chuckled. “I’m not even sure what the hell normal is anymore.” Bernie poked his nose between us, a sign that he needed a break. “You just have to give it time. It’s a process that can’t be rushed.”

  When we got to the hospital we showed our credentials to a guard who gave us a brief update on Bratton State Hospital. “We’re closing down in a couple of weeks. Most of the patients and staff have already been transferred.” He pointed to a building with a bell tower and the institution’s name. “Administration’s over there.”

  After we parked, Bernie watered some bushes while we surveyed the hospital grounds. The buildings were all mission style, with faded whitewashed walls and red tile roofs. There were black metal grates on all the windows, bars on the doors. Many of the structures looked to be in disrepair. Where there had probably once been rolling green lawns, there were now brown patches of earth, overgrown with weeds. The hospital was surrounded by farmland that I knew from having been in the area before went almost to the ocean.

  “Place was built in the 1930’s,” I told Pearl. “According to the Internet it housed over a thousand patients at one time. Most of them have been relocated up north to Coalinga.”

  We walked toward the administration building as Pearl looked across the grounds and said, “It’s a good thing these walls can’t talk.”

  I had to agree with him. There was something about the faded buildings and grounds, the wind whistling around the corners of the empty structures that conjured up images of straight-jackets, lobotomies, shock treatments, and a host of other depressing things that I tried to push away.

  After showing our credentials to a receptionist, we were met by Ralph Prescott, who we learned was the hospital’s transitional administrator. He confirmed that the institution was closing due to the state’s budget woes and the opening of more modern facilities in Northern California.

  “I’m not sure how I can help,” Prescott said. The bureaucrat was probably in his fifties with a gray crew cut. His face was long and serious.

  “We’re looking for information about a deceased former patient named Robert Lofton,” I explained. “He was committed to the hospital in the early 1980’s and spent three years here. He has a possible connection to a homicide case we’re working.”

  “Oh my.” Prescott tugged on his tie. “The records from that era would be…” His hand moved up, finding an earlobe, and his gaze drifted away. “Probably in a warehouse. I’d have to do some research.” He met my eyes again. “You do understand they’re considered medical records. It would require a court order, even if we could locate them.”

  I sighed, glanced over at Pearl out of frustration.

  “I’m not sure how much the files will help us,” Pearl said to Prescott. “Any chance there’s staff still here from when Lofton was under commitment?”

  Prescott shrugged. “Hard to say.” He tapped a pencil on his desk, his eyes turning inward for a moment. He finally focused on Pearl. “There is a psych tech who’s retiring in a couple of weeks when the hospital closes down. He’s been here over thirty years. I suppose you could talk…” He shook his head. “Our records are confidential, so…”

  “We’re not interested in breaching anyone’s confidentiality,” I said. “Besides, as I mentioned, Lofton’s dead.”

  Prescott huffed out a breath. “You can talk to Henry Vernon then. He’s in building 214, one of the last housing units that still has patients. I’ll call ahead, let him know that you’re coming and see if he can meet you in the courtyard.”

  As we walked across the grounds to meet Vernon the dreariness of the place caught up with me again. A low ceiling of gray fog had drifted in from the ocean, only adding to the forbidding sense I’d felt before. Earlier I’d told Pearl that the taskforce thought The Artist would be returning to Hollywood, something that we discussed again as we walked.

  “I have a feeling when I tell Edna about it, he’s going to pull me off the case and put me in a closet somewhere,” I said.

  We stopped a few yards from the building where the psychiatric technician worked. “Hard to say how it will play. Maybe we just make the case that you’ll be surrounded by the feebies and yours truly. See how it goes.”

  I breathed, glanced over at a man coming out of the building. “I’ve got too much invested in this case to just walk away.”

  We walked over to the courtyard and introduced ourselves. Henry Vernon was African-American, probably pushing somewhere into the upper regions of fifty. He was bald, on the heavy side, dressed in khaki pants, and a hospital issued polo shirt. We settled in on benches in the courtyard and I explained why we were there.

  “We’re looking into the background of a patient who was committed here in the early 1980’s. His name was Robert Lofton.” I handed over the mug shot. On the surface, there was nothing remarkable about the sex offender. He had brown hair and eyes, the blank stare of an offender staring into a camera.

  Vernon took a couple of minutes, scratching and making sounds that made me think he might remember Lofton. He finally handed the mug back. “Sorry. Thirty-plus years on the job and the faces run together. What did you say his crimes were?”

  “He was a violent sexual predator who held a neighborhood kid hostage for several days and sodomized him.”

  “Sounds like one of our typical cases.” He breathed. “We didn’t get many choir boys through here.”

  “What was it like back then?” Pearl asked, his gaze drifting over the hospital grounds for a moment then back to Vernon. “I imagine there’s been a few changes over the years.”

  Vernon nodded, his tired eyes crinkling up at the corners. “The place was packed to the rafters. It was really a city within itself. Had our own post office, store, even a morgue. Mostly it was just a place where people came, did their time, and moved on.”

  “Back to the streets so they could victimize again,” I said.

  He nodded. “It wasn’t right. We all knew it but…” He scratched his head. “…we were part of a broken system.” He asked me for Lofton’s mug again. I handed it over. After another look he shook his head and gave it back. “Sorry.”

  “He had a couple of sons,” I said, putting the mug shot back in my briefcase. “Damien and Ellian. I don’t know if they ever visited.”

  “Would have been on Sundays, if they did. There was always a big crowd.” He said he was sorry again. We shook hands and he began moving back up the sidewalk to the building where he was assigned.

  “Maybe I’m just spinning my wheels,” I said to Pearl. “I’m sure Lofton was a sick freak who molested his sons, but I don’t know if that has anything to do with finding The Artist.”

  We had turned to walk away when Henry Vernon called over to us. “Did you say something about art?” he asked as he walked back over to us.

  I nodded. “There’s a man who’s been involved in killing girls. He calls himself The Artist. We think there’s a link between Robert Lofton’s son, Ellian, and him.”

  Vernon rubbed his wide forehead, his gaze moving between Pearl and me. “I think I might remember something about this Lofton fellow you’re asking about. Only reason something sticks is I recall reading the case file when he was assigned to my unit. The guy did something unusual to his victims.”

  I glanced over at Pearl, back to him. “What’s that?”

  “He painted their faces.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  There’s a hiss as the driver releases the brake and
the doors on the bus swing closed. It lumbers forward into the desert twilight, carrying a young woman who wears a blue chiffon dress, a white blouse, and a pair of Andre Magradi shoes. Her empty blue eyes stare unblinking into the darkening, barren landscape.

  Loretta Martin breathes, thinking about what she’s leaving behind. James Martin, the person she was has gone away. The sorrow and pain of that existence has been pushed down. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon Loretta is determined to spread her wings and fly.

  The exhibition of the maiden known as Patty Shay was a success, covered in all the local newspapers, and now even by the national media. She knows the stakes will be higher now. The final exhibition of Ellian’s masterpiece will need to be meticulously planned and executed.

  The final exhibit.

  There were times when she and Jason had wondered if they would ever finish. Jason. Just the thought of him comforts her. Loretta turns, resting her head against the window, feeling the rumble of the bus on the road, and clutching herself for warmth. When they are together again maybe then she can begin to put…

  “Excuse me.”

  Loretta jumps, startled by the sudden voice. She looks up into the smiling face of a young man.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  She sees that the young man’s face is pleasant, even handsome. He’s dressed casually in blue jeans and a sweater. Something about his brown hair and blue eyes remind her of Jason. “Um, no actually. It’s available.”

  He slips into the seat next to her. His voice is friendly, just like Jason’s. “Thanks. It’s kind of lonely back there.” He motions to the half empty bus, the unoccupied seats, before turning back to her. “Where are you headed?”

  “Los Angeles,” she says, smiling shyly.